Post Interview Feedback – Why keep us both hanging around?

The speed a recruiter receives feedback from a candidate is important after any interview.

It is a traffic light moment between the candidate and the recruiter. It is time to gauge your motivation level and interest in the role, your immediate concerns and in fact you are being compared against other past or current candidates.

It is a 10 or 20 minute telephone conversation which is regarded by recruiters as being important.

The questions you will be asked are typically these:

How are you feeling after the interview?

What did you think went well?

How long were you in the interview?

Who interviewed you?

Which questions do you think were not answered well?

Was there anything you think you just got wrong? Do we need to follow-up any points or provide some information?

After the interview, do you think the job is the right one for you? Does it match what we have spoken about? Do you have any concerns?

On a scale of 1 to 10, salary and all other things being correct, is it a job you would accept if offered?

For the next interview, if you progress, do you have any concerns? What are your thoughts on how you may do better?

What follow-up actions do you need me to do to help you? I will of course be speaking to the client and seeking their feedback and will advise you of the next step.

Post Interview Feedback Questions Explained

This tells a recruiter your emotional state, post-interview it does vary from excited and keen to “what the hell was I doing” anger. The latter often caused by a bad interviewer, or personal frustration at not doing well. A number of times, I have discussed with HR interview coaching and have managed to secure acceptance to have a candidate re-interviewed.

Candidates will always tell you what went well, most understate their interview experience. A good recruiter will hear and know it by the tone of your voice.

The amount of time you spend in an interview is a guiding light to actual performance. The typical time period is 60-90 minutes single person or panel. However, after 20 minutes you have every right as a candidate to stop the interview and politely advise there is an error, a mis-match. The hiring manager can do the same. It is a brave move and one which is remembered yet it may not be bad news. Instances when a candidate has been accelerated to the next interview stage following the 20 minute “sanity check” do occur.

This confirms to the recruiter the interview was as proposed, or to ask why it changed in format. The most common reason for additional interviewers attending is that someone else in the process is simply at Head Office or the location for the day. Three times this happened at one company before I was advised, the “extra” person was in fact to be their new boss, under notice at his old company and the hiring manager was being promoted so all very confidential.

There will always be questions which you feel you do not answer well. Honestly reviewing and giving the information to the recruiter of hiring team, simply lets them be aware, the reality what you think may be important may just be a training or product awareness need by the company and be lower rated in the question and answer list.

Times do occur when something in the interview went wrong, knowledge known and presented badly, the wrong facts given, or you stated you needed to follow-up with some information. This is more common than you can believe, the post interview feedback review enables you to allow the recruiter or HR person to be given an update or a supporting reference / Zeugnis which you feel is important.

This question is quality control, for you does it all make sense for you, your career and family. It tells the recruiter the parameters of the job are as described and have not been changed by the hiring team. You have a chance to tell a recruiter your concerns and worries, your openness is respected.

The job and employment check question – Are you ready to commit to a job offer? All I personally can say here is, this is very important to any recruiter, it seeks to check your motivation to join the company and the probability you would do so. Time and again I have had “poker player job offer responders” play their hand of secrecy and lose the game. A person willing to accept a role if offered even with qualification will be rated higher than the one keeping his cards so close to his chest only he knows what they are!

The futures question links back to the desire to have and accept the job. It also resets your mind, from the event of today to plan for tomorrow we hope. It helps to reduce the impact of the negatives just experienced and use them as a development area to do better. It may be something as simple as watching a few YouTube videos like this one for example.

This is your personal request moment, ask if you need something which you need and do not necessarily need the company to provide. It is also a question telling you there will be further contact.

So the next time you have an interview, do not hang around, tap out an email or pick up the telephone. Hopefully all went well, if it did not, guess what, you may still be able to recover the opportunity.

If you are the poker player, need to be chased with multiple calls or go silent on a recruiter, you simply are telling them you do not want the job. Why? That is the high % factor behaviour response trait.

The post is a bit of a long one, I am sure there are other questions or points to cover, this is my shortlist and one for daily use, so please comment and share with others.

Good luck with your future interviews, please do not hesitate to share or sign-up for the blog posts or newsletter.